07 — James Among the Three Jameses
The New Testament names three distinct men “James” (Greek Iakōbos, after the patriarch Jacob), and from earliest times their stories have been crossed and conflated. This section sorts them out: James son of Zebedee, the first apostle to die; James son of Alphaeus, “the Less,” one of the Twelve; and James the Brother of the Lord, first bishop of Jerusalem and the subject of this collection — whom the Orthodox Church keeps as a separate person, reckoned among the Seventy.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Apostle)
A single name carries three lives, and East and West have drawn the lines between them differently. The Orthodox Church commemorates three Jameses on three separate days and treats them as three men: James son of Zebedee (April 30), James son of Alphaeus (October 9), and James the Brother of the Lord (October 23). The Roman tradition, following Jerome, tended to merge the last two. These two files lay out the scriptural data, then weigh the identity question across the traditions, affirming the Eastern (Epiphanian) reading without polemic.
Files in This Section
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| The Three Jameses | The three New Testament figures named James — son of Zebedee (the Greater, first apostle martyred, Acts 12:1–2), son of Alphaeus (the Less, of the Twelve), and the Brother of the Lord (of the Seventy) — with their texts and the three Orthodox feasts that keep them distinct. |
| The Identity Question | The scholarly and traditional dispute: the Hieronymian conflation of the Brother of the Lord with the son of Alphaeus versus the Epiphanian/Eastern distinction; Gal 1:19, John 7:5, and the “Mary of Clopas” question weighed across the traditions. |
See Also
- The Brothers of the Lord — the kinship question on which the identity question rests
- James the Just — the man himself, distinguished here from his namesakes
- The Church Fathers — Jerome and Epiphanius among the Fathers whose readings divide here
References
- Lightfoot, J. B. “The Brethren of the Lord.” Dissertation in St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians. London: Macmillan, 1865.
- Epiphanius of Salamis. Panarion 78. Trans. Frank Williams. Leiden: Brill, 1994.
- Jerome. Against Helvidius. Trans. in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series II, Vol. 6. 1893.
- Bauckham, Richard. Jude and the Relatives of Jesus in the Early Church. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1990.